A Post COVID-19 World & The Internet: My Notes

First, a quick glance of the biggest sociopolitical trends in 2020:

1. Eco-shaming & anti-racism

2. The burned out generation

3. Shift of power and influence to the people

4. Toxicity of online communities & social media platforms

5. Adoption of virtual technologies & functioning remotely amid a socially-distanced world

Social Media & The Internet as an equalizer between individuals, groups and organizations

- Social media platforms and networks increase speed, degree of exposure for news and content (i.e. viral videos and posts shared by individuals or groups).

- These platforms include Facebook, Twitter, forums such as Reddit, Whatsapp & Telegram Private Groups, etc.

- Digitization and surveillance with video cameras and smart phones have increased the transparency of individuals, corporations and governments, which enables greater public scrutiny. The internet is an information vault.

- Users on the internet are constantly increasing.

- Individuals feel a greater sense power (and anonymity) on the internet.

Present Forms & Movements on the Internet

1. Individuals posting about personal experiences and incidents on social media for awareness/ attention. (I.e. poor products and services, racism, animal cruelty, crime, etc.)

2. Individuals / Groups creating parody videos about real experiences about incidents to drive messages across. Contentious issues are delivered in a humorous and relatable style to increase acceptance by a wider audience.

3. Visual content to “shock” and drive the message across (I.e. climate change, human suffering, wildlife destruction, etc).

4. Online vigilantism enabling praise, shaming, and conduct of relief efforts.

5. “Memes” as a new online vocabulary.

6. A question of source, authenticity, credibility, and agenda of content creators that require discernment and even regulation (I.e. fake news, biased reporting, etc.)

7. Tendency of mob behavior.

8. Social entrepreneurs, human and animal rights activists, climate support groups, etc. are gaining foothold and traction on the internet by raising public awareness and gradually creating policy changes (I.e. Daughters of Tomorrow, Backalley Barbers, Greenwatch, Pink Dot SG, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, etc).

What Are We Seeing Now & What Will It Lead to?

- The internet is a uniquely attractive place for people. It is highly stimulating, engaging and immersive that rewards exploration.

- Individuals are feeling invisible and insignificant as result of the same accessibility and connectivity that the internet provides.

- Transfer-ability of the internet to everyday life (I.e. perpetrators from online vigilantism called out in public, doxing, cancel culture, cyber bullying causing a sharp rise in suicide rates, etc.)

- Birth and creation of the cyber self or persona.

- A distortion of time / time warp created by the internet (I.e. feelings of dissociation when not online, concept of time differs from reality because there is no concept of time on the internet).

- People being increasingly non-present in the real world.

- People tend to behave more impulsively without reflecting on the consequences of their actions on the internet.

- People seek feedback on the internet (I.e. comments, likes, quizzes, etc.) which may not be healthy for self-development.

- More time on the internet translates to lesser time in real-life interaction. For children and young people, this may mean they do not develop the social and emotion management skills derived from interactive play.

- Rise of the cyber self; migration of the self to the internet (I.e. Who am I on the internet eclipses or superceedes who am I in real life).

- A case for global cultural evolution after multilinear cultural evolution???

- A case of knowing everything yet knowing nothing for the everyday internet user.

- The internet creates diversity as the new collectivism - an aspiration for a state of peaceful co-existence between increasingly specialized groups, cultures, and communities.

Final thoughts.

With deep-seated ideologies that past humans were poor, savage, and selfish; cognitive biases that the present must be good and better than the past, further fueled by the prevalence of sleek marketing; a relative lack of complete understanding about the true power and dark side of the internet; and the speed and raise of Dataism, people may need to exercise great caution in pursuit of what they deem as "progress" and organize more collective, cross-field thinking and discussions to chart the route that best serves the future of people as a human race. Even if one decides to migrate themselves completely to the internet, there will still be a need to distinguish between real world and cyber space, by virtue of functionality that each environment offers and simply for the fact that the cyber self will cease to exist without the real self in healthy sustenance.

Credits & Resources:

1. New Forms & Movements in Singapore, Global-is-Asian Staff https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/gia/article/new-social-forms-and-movements-in-singapore

2. The Cyber Effect: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behavior Changes Online, Mary Aiken

3. Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress, Christopher Ryan

4. Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari